Roof-top load carriers for vehicles are well known. They typically include general-purpose racks, rigid enclosures, flexible racks or enclosures and a variety of special-purpose carriers, designed for specific types of equipment, such as bicycles, boats, ski boards etc. A load carrier may be referred to in the sequel interchangeably also as a “load” or a “carrier”. These terms are also to be understood as including baggage not specifically designed to be carried on vehicle roof-tops, such as suitcases, bags and cartons.
All roof-top carriers and loads have a fundamental common need, namely to be safely secured to the body of the vehicle so that they remain in place during vehicle motion.
Generally such securing involves load straps that (a) are attached to the carrier or pulled over the load, (b) engage some holding part of the vehicle and (c) may be tightened and held tight by means of suitable buckles or the like. The particular holding part of the vehicle and the manner in which it is engaged by the load straps may be broadly classified into three types: (a) The holding parts are rails permanently attached to the roof-top and the load straps are simply wound around the rails or around special anchors attached to the rails; (b) the holding part is the entire roof and the load straps run through the vehicle's doorways and span the top of its interior space; (c) The holding parts are the tops of the vehicle's door-frames and the load straps engage them by means of special door-frame hooks.
Of the aforementioned three types, type ‘a’ is applicable only to vehicles that are equipped with suitable rails. Type ‘b’ has several drawbacks, including interference with the operation of side airbags, obtrusive presence of the load straps inside the vehicle and a predisposition to sideway slippage. Type ‘c’, to which the present invention relates, is applicable to practically all personal passenger vehicles (e.g. so-called sedans), as well as many other vehicle types, and generally overcomes the drawbacks enumerated above with regard to type ‘b’. However the configuration of the special hooks and the manner in which they engage the doorframes, according to prior art, have several disadvantages, to be discussed below. It is noted that a vehicle doorframe is generally lined with a flexible strip, known as door sealer or “potter”, which is fixedly attached to the door frame and serves to seal the doorway from outside air and water when the door is shut. According to prior art, the door-frame hook (which is attached to the load strap) is configured to engage the door sealer as part of the door frame; in other words, the hook is wide enough to fit over the sealer and is designed to press against it when the load strap is tightened.
The disadvantages of a door-frame hook of prior art and of the manner in which it engages the door frame include: (1) If the load strap becomes loose, for any reason, the hook may slip from the sealer and thus become disengaged, particularly if the door is opened even momentarily; this may cause the entire load to become unstable or even fall off the rooftop. (2) The considerable pressure exerted by the hook on the sealer may damage it, at least gradually, thus reducing its effectiveness. (3) The relatively large width of the hook, combined with its structurally-necessitated greater massivity, may interfere with the tightness of contact between the sealer and the door, thus again reducing sealing effectiveness, or even necessitating greater force to shut the door.
Thus there is a need for, and it would be advantageous to have, a means for engaging the load straps of roof-top load carriers to the door frame of a vehicle that will be devoid of the aforementioned disadvantages.